Whatever Happened to Broccoli and His Rat?

Maybe you saw a video I posted to Facebook very late Wednesday night. It was simply captioned:

I’m going to set my house on fire.

Because that seemed reasonable at the moment.

In fact, it’s still sort of a good idea.

So yeah… we’re not great with vermin and didn’t help the cause at all. I admit it. It was late, I was tired, and the only reason we even have cats is that back in 2011 we really did have a rat and mouse problem and I grabbed Sparky from the pound and she went on a murderous rampage. She eliminated all the rats and a couple of lizards too.

She’s a very effective cat… a good eater too.

In any event, after I screamed and the rat got loose (my bad) I did a quick Facebook update. Here’s the video:

And then it went down. And by down I mean downhill. Like a spiral. And it was terrible and I was up until 3 am. Mercifully my husband was out of town so only my son had his Thursday hijacked by lack of sleep.

This is long…. the comments are wildly entertaining though.

We sealed off the bedroom door. My son slept in my daughter’s bedroom and my daughter and I shared a bed the first night. We left Sparky in my son’s room, hopeful that she’d kill the rat. When we awoke and there was no dead rat we decided to open the door and I ran to the hardware store for snap traps.

36 hours later there was still no dead rat. We were grossed out and dejected. We also had to keep doors shut so that pets couldn’t get near the snap traps. Then my friend Jerome told me about his last crummy landlord and the efficiency of electric traps.

I ran back to the hardware store and this time I bought The Rat ZapperThey were expensive compared to snap traps but my sanity was slowly spilling away so it felt like money well spent.

This morning I woke up to a red light blinking on the Rat Zapper, and the best news was that Mr. G was home and it was his turn to deal with the rat.

I went to play tennis and came home to this in the trash bin.

[gross image ahead – you’ve been warned]

And now all is right with the world.

Sort of.

My daughter went back to college Friday and Broccoli hasn’t left her bed for a meaningful amount of time since then. I hope this sadness doesn’t lead him to befriend more rats.

Oh you made my day. This was hilarious. I don’t know you but I love you and your family. You guys are Troopers. I’m glad everything ended well. And your house is gorgeous. Thank you for sharing your story. And good luck to broccoli….lol

Jessica it is 5am in NYC and I came across your videos. First of all NYC has rats yes but I’ll be damned if one came in my apartment I would still be alive now. I’m deathly afraid like you, so I saw myself doing everything you did. I lost sleep, whiplash, and money trying to catch mice lol. We are always a mom protecting our cubs. It was so funny the tears in my eyes are a testament. BTW your home is gorgeous, but if you had never caught that rat we would’ve helped you pack and move. I love it!

My Yorkie came running in the doggie door, dropped a live baby opossum on the floor and ran under the bed. It was 5:30 in the morning and dark in my room. I looked down and all I saw was a long tail until I turned on the light. I grabbed a towel scooped it up and ran out the front door with it. Tossed it on the grass and ran back in. The teeth on that thing, I’m amazed I could do that but I wasn’t letting it get away in my house

Good lord. If something that was actually dangerous made it into that house, I’m pretty sure the neurotic inhabitants would explode. We are truly devolving as a species into overly-dramatic pathetic vaginas.

I once had a squirrel decide to move into my house. He knocked everything over, pooped everywhere, and it took THREE days to catch him! We managed to lock him in my daughter’s room and could clean up the rest of the house. Despite sanitizing it all twice, my daughter did not like her room ever again! I watched your video with laughs & an equal amount of horror!

Jessica I two Calico cat’s one is called a torta cause she has no white her name is Bella but I call her Cameo kitty a lot cause she blends in real well. My older girl is while calico named Snickers cause she reminds you of the candy bar now she is my mighty warrior. When weather is nice I leave bedroom window up and I have come home to dead mice moles birds lizards alive lizards. Been woke up by small squirrel running around top of room and dead squirrel on floor and even a small snake. I tell her how proud I am of her but mom doesn’t need to see all this and it does not need to be in house but I still have to watch her. Bella is all hot air thank goodness. Broccoli is cool name and beautiful cat. Good luck. and have a great day. Rhonda

Cats will often bring prey, dead and alive, as presents. It sucks when they are alive or just injured. He wasn’t being mean or “stupid” though. Broccoli was probably confused about all of the kerfuffle and wondering why everyone was yelling at him. If you are able, building a catio for your critters or putting a bell on Broccoli’s collar might help prevent this from happening again. Hope you all got some sleep.

hahaha well she loves going outside, and she would bring back random things (as well as dead things) like sticks, candy wrappers, etc through my bedroom window, one day it was a sandwich baggie with some shake in it haha

Thank you for sharing the video with us all! This was truly amusing…and I was able to relate to some of it. I had a teacup schnauzer who did this once with a field mouse, and a baby rabbit…but I was able to catch them both at the back door JUST IN TIME, before she shot into the house quickly after being outside to go to the bathroom.
I suspected something was up both times because she kept wanting to go outside when it was so hot, here in AZ, and she usually does NOT do this.
So this was fun to watch and remember my sweet girl, Annie, since she passed away last year, at the age of 12, from congested heart failure. Your cat reminded me a little of her, especially when Broccoli got bored at the linen closet, and just laid there outside of it! I laughed so much at how you all acted…because I thought my family and I were the only ones that were like this with our pet! Thanks!!

Funny as hell. I have 2 pet rats but still don’t like wild rats invading the house. Rats can jump but I have used a nice tall plastic kitchen trash can to catch them in. When the rat was behind the door you could of laid can down close to rat and since he was cornered he would of run into can. Then stand it up and cover it. Take it outside and turn it loose or killed it.